


A trip to the ER never hurt anyone, more like the other way around.

by Narkito



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 19:00:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3989158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narkito/pseuds/Narkito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doing housework has its hazards. </p><p>A little vignette with very little plot, just wanted to write a domestic scene where someone gets hurt, and the other cares for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A trip to the ER never hurt anyone, more like the other way around.

“Justo two more inches, Danno.”

“Two more inches, he says, like two more inches make a difference after hours of forced labor.” But Danny redoubles his efforts all the same. He and Steve have been tidying up the garage for ages, they’re sweaty, tired and hungry; though it’s all for a good reason (or what Steve considers a good reason), which is ‘clean, recycle and repair,’ well, the key words of it anyway. 

Danny grunts in effort and Steve catches himself staring, doing his best to pay enough attention to the task at hand. Danny’s t-shirt is caught on the edge of the box and rides up his belly, the sight makes Steve break out his satisfied crooked smile, and that’s when the box slips from his grasp and pins Danny’s left hand to the edge of the wheelbarrow. Steve’s scrambling to get it off, but he can’t without letting go of the other side, but then, that will make the box topple over and fall on Danny’s feet.

Danny grabs the affected hand by the wrist and squeezes hard, blinking fast, trying to get rid of the tears welling up in his eyes. 

“Jesus Christ, Steven! A little help here, please?!”

“I know, I know! I’m sorry! Sorry.” Steve finds an angle he can work with and lifts the box half an inch, enough for Danny to slide his hand from under it and cradle it against his chest, hissing in pain. Steve tilts the box just so that it falls into the wheelbarrow, the discarded construction materials rattling inside. “I’m so sorry, babe, are you okay?”

Danny is not okay. There’s white-hot pain shooting up from his hand all the way to his elbow and cold sweat is already forming at his temples. His entire connection with the world has been reduced to the pain in his arm and trying not to make it worse by bumping it against something, or touching it too much, or even looking at it. He cradles his left hand on his right and bends over in pain, trying to let it run through him, waiting for the brunt of it to subside.

“Oh, god, Steve, I think you broke my hand, Jesus fuck, this fucking hurts!” Danny lets his mouth run away from him, only half thinking the string of obscenities that he’s uttering. 

Steve gets close to Danny, making a move to check his hand, but Danny basically leaps away from him, his entire body screaming _‘no!’_ and _’get away!’_

“Don’t you touch me, you Neanderthal, you already maimed me. Enough is enough. _Ah, shit!_ ” Danny tightens his hold on his hand and lets out a harsh puff of air through his nose as another wave of pain rolls through it and spreads up his arm, the entire limb feels wrong and off kilter. 

Steve raises his hands palms to the front, trying to ease Danny, as he would with a scared child. They need to move fast if the hand is in fact, broken. He’s already thinking about the time it will take them to get to an ER, surgeries and post-op care, he did drop a hundred-pound box of leftover tiles onto Danny’s hand, after all. Things still have a lot of room to get messy.

“Just breathe it out, man, the worst of the pain will go away, but I really need to check your hand.”

Steve makes another move for Danny and this time Danny stays put, but doesn’t relinquish his injured hand. Steve's face relaxes and he makes a _‘gimme’_ motion with his fingers, Danny eyes him suspiciously, but relents. 

His ring finger is swelling up fast, already showing the tell-tale signs of a bruise forming under his nail and the fingertip. There isn’t any obvious deformation at the joint or otherwise, though, and that’s good, although they won’t be able to tell for sure until he gets checked out by a doctor. They need to get rid of the ring immediately, so Steve focuses on that, but when he goes to touch it, Danny flinches, curling his hand into a fist and immediately swearing left and right for it.

“Look, we need to take the ring off before your hand—“

“No, nah-uh,” Danny says, holding his hand once again to his chest. His heart’s beating against his breastbone and a bolt of pain surges through him, front to back, spiking out at the top of his head. 

“We do it here fast and maybe with a little pain, or they do it on the ER with…” Steve gives the hand an appreciative look, “bolt cutters, don’t think they’ll be able to get it off any other way by the time we get there.” Danny is not impressed, he’s seen the McGarrett approach to medicine one too many times, he knows there are better ways to do things, safer ways, less complicated ways, less chance for future pain too. Steve presses on. “Those things are big, Danny, who knows if they’ll slip and cut your finger too.” 

Danny studies his hand and sure enough his finger looks shiny and red around the middle.

“Fine, fine, take it off.” Steve’s touch is firm but gentle and the ring is a bit tight, but it slides off without a hitch, only causing a mild wave of pain to Danny that he manages with stoic disposition. The space where the ring used to be is quickly filled by the swelling. 

Steve is looking at Danny straight to his eyes, holding the ring in his right hand. There’s a pause and then they smile in tandem, the familiarity of the scene shaking loose a precious memory of their still newfound marriage. Steve puts the ring on his own finger, taking his own wedding band off and putting it on again after Danny’s, to make sure it’s secure and stays there. Danny’s fingers are only slightly thicker, so the size difference is not that big, but he’ll rather play it safe. 

Danny is smiling his goofy elated smile, if only for a second, all of the sudden he has bags under his eyes and the reddish color of his cheeks is fading. 

Steve turns Danny’s hand and gently probes the palm and knuckles. Danny flinches a bit, but keeps his mouth closed in a thin line, a determined look on his face. Once Steve’s satisfied the damage was not as extensive as he feared, he allows part of the tension to dissolve at his feet, yet he still needs to take Danny to a doctor. 

“Okay, we gonna ice it, and then I’m taking you to the ER.”

Danny catches himself in a half state of relief and grief. Going to the ER means waiting hours for an x-ray, his condition is not life-threatening and sure as hell kiddies with scraped knees will take precedence over him, he almost wishes Steve had a trick up his sleeve, but then his mind conjures up images of his crazy-ass husband trampling the jungle in hot pursuit, with a branch sticking out of his arm, bundled in gauze and bandages. The ER shines as the only sane option. 

“Lead the way, babe.”

\--

Three hours later, Danny’s signing his release form at the nurses’ desk when Steve joins him.

“Here,” says Steve, “I brought you a sweater; I always get cold when I break something.”

Danny rolls his eyes and accepts it, struggling to pass the splint through the sleeve and rolling his eyes again when he notices Steve itching to help. 

“See, Steven, the fact that you’ve found a pattern to this, is what makes me anxious; I don’t think Ma meant it like that when she said I have to be with a nice girl that makes my stomach twist in anticipation.”

Steve chuckles. “Did you just call me a girl?”

Danny smiles one of his goofiest smiles, and yeah, Steve can see how Danny may be a bit high from the painkiller and the strain of the day, he’s even willing to concede he might’ve overdone it with the whole garage cleaning op that lead to this.

“I’m going to let that one slide, because I believe you’re too high to defend yourself properly right now.”

Danny chortles and cradles his injured hand to his chest, turning towards the exit. 

“I can’t believe they cracked the good stuff for a broken finger,” says Danny. 

“Phalanx, Danny, you broke one phalanx, and not even an important one.”

“Hey, shush, I get a couple of days off for this, plus I didn’t break it, you did.”

“Not intentionally, babe, you know that.” He smiles sheepishly at Danny, but Danny is a hundred percent focused on getting to the exit. 

“I know, babe, but I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth.” Of course he will, he wouldn’t be Danny otherwise. 

They reach the doors and a chill breeze meets them as they step outside, Danny shivers, silently thanking Steve for the forethought of getting him one of his Jersey sweaters, as he calls them in his mind. It turns out that other than feeling like his finger is about to fall off, he does also feel colder than usual, in spite of Hawaiian paradise weather. 

Steve steers Danny to the car, and Danny lets himself be manhandled into the Camaro. When Steve is about to close the door, Danny says, “so, do I get a late breakfast out of this or what?”

“Are you seriously telling me you score morphine for a broken finger?” If that’s the case, Steve’s about to go yell at someone in charge. 

“Nah, but I’m loopy all the same, so breakfast, yay or nay?”

“What’s with you and breakfast when you’re high, Danny? It’s like eleven, it’s night, so not breakfast time.”

Danny shrugs noncommittally in response.

“Will homemade pancakes do?”

“Yeah, sounds perfect.” Danny perks up a little and turns to look at Steve, smiling at him with his eyes. Steve pokes his head inside long enough to kiss Danny and help him with the seatbelt. 

“Easy there, sailor, you’re not getting any tonight.”

Steve chuckles as he presses his forehead to Danny’s shoulder. One would think Danny couldn’t be any more forward, but pump him full of anything stronger than Tylenol and there you have it, in its entire splendor.

“Whatever you say, babe,” he says closing the door. He hurries to the driver’s side and gets in, catching the last of Danny’s words, who apparently just kept talking to Steve without even realizing he wasn’t there to listen.

“—all I’m saying is I could use a shower, you know?”

“Sure, we’ll wrap a bag on your hand, so you don’t have to take the splint off, alright?”

Steve starts the engine, and checks the mirrors, but when he doesn’t get an answer, he turns to check on Danny, only to find him half asleep, slowly turning to rest his forehead on the window. He lowers the volume of the radio and puts his seatbelt on, happy to be heading home.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to my mum, who dropped a 30-kilo case of brand-new tiles on my left hand and then proceeded to laugh at me whilst I screamed in pain. I ended up with a cracked distal phalanx and a splint. Seven days later this story it’s the only thing I have to show for it.


End file.
